ICD-11 May Be the Next Coding Hurdle

By Editorial Staff

The health care community's on-going "scramble" to prepare for adoption of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition (ICD-10) got a welcome reprieve recently when the Department of Health and Human Services announced a proposed delay in the compliance deadline until Oct. 1, 2014.

Now the American Medical Association has taken the conversation a step further, proposing at its 2012 House of Delegates meeting that ICD-11 be considered as a possible option to replace ICD-9, effectively bypassing ICD-10 implementation altogether.

According to meeting highlights, the AMA House of Delegates "voted to evaluate ICD-11 as a possible alternative to replace the ICD-9 code set. Delegates asked the AMA and other stakeholders, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), to examine other options instead of implementing the ICD-10 code set." As of press time, no further action has been announced, although considering that providers only have approximately 15 months until ICD-10 compliance takes effect (even with the proposed delay), one assumes any transition away from ICD-10 implementation and toward adoption of ICD-11 would need to be finalized relatively soon. Otherwise, once finalized, ICD-11 would likely be subject to similar challenges / delays as ICD-10 in terms of implementation / compliance by the health care community.

The World Health Organization, publisher of the International Classification of Diseases, is expected to have a final draft of ICD-11 available for official WHO endorsement by 2015. The beta draft of ICD-11 is currently available online for commenting at http://apps.who.int/classifications/icd11/browse/f/en. According to the WHO, site visitors can browse sections of the proposed content without registering and/or register to participate in the beta phase. Successive drafts of the ICD-11 are being facilitated utilizing what the WHO describes as a "Wiki-like tool" whereby "users will engage in field trials through the global Web-based platform. This Internet-based knowledge management and sharing process will allow broader participation of multiple stakeholders in the creation and review of the new classification."

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